transition

Finally catching my breath, I am starting to get the ordinary details of life arranged, finding a doctor, a vet, a dentist, getting all the citizen work one does after moving to a new location.

In denial as a choice, or merely stunned by the rapidity of the move and immediately starting a new job, or both?

Painting the apartment will be soon.

Meanwhile, the world goes on. I am reading the large volume Gotham, the history of New York City from its founding through the end of the 19th Century. In its entire history, this particular city has faced the tensions and explosions and the value of immigrants.

Reflecting on the Fourth of July this year, I fear we Americans are losing the important elements of this country that make us exceptional in a postive way, commitment to constitutional law, rejection of torture, and understanding that in a democracy we fair better when no one group dictates to the exclusion of all the rest. For years, we have heard about the danger of compromise, but looking at the six or seven years of the Bush presidency, where dividing is almost always preferable to uniting, where playing to the base almost always supercedes seeking national consensus, where our differences are heightened to lessen our common goals, then I wonder, like most folk, how much longer till the clock runs out, and we have the opportunity to elect someone who will be president of the entire country.

Normally, I hate the long and early campaigns. But this time I am terribly impatient, as are, I assume, many Americans.